‘Now tattoos give you cancer’

It always amuses me when a Daily Mail hack writes an article about something new ‘causing cancer’ in a kind of eyebrows-raised ‘whatever will they link to cancer next?’ kind of way when 99% of the time the only organisation intent on linking everything to the causation of cancer is the newspaper that they write for.

Smoking, drinking, sunbathing and mobile phones have all been implicated in the surge in cancer diagnoses.

But now it seems another cause may soon be added to the ever-growing list: tattoos.

And, naturally, when you reach the end of the article doubts start to creep in about whether tattoos are in fact being linked to cancer – let alone ‘give you cancer’ as suggested by the headline:

serious epidemiological studies pose difficulties, since getting a tattoo is still risky behaviour.

Attempting to isolate whether these are the carcinogenic factors in a group of people who habitually engage in risk taking behaviours – like smoking – is impossible…

A spokesman for the agency [FDA] said: ‘Because the dyes and inks used in tattoos have not been approved by FDA, we do not know the specific composition of what these inks and dyes may contain.

‘Therefore, we are unable to evaluate for chronic health concerns, such as cancer.’

So, the Daily Mail has added another cause to the ever-growing list by immediately concluding that if something is investigated – even vaguely – to see whether it might be capable of causing cancer it must therefore be already causing cancer; whilst at the same time chuckling about those people that keep adding stuff to the ever-growing cancer list.

The Mail’s obsessed with the phrase “Now they say…”as if there’s a single committee of people who decide what science is done and what we know. Then at the next meeting they discuss it and change their mind.

I did a search on the Mail site and they’d used the term “Now they say” 3000 times.

Scientists, it seems, are worse than our lass for changing their minds…

At the risk of dignifying this nonsense with a proper answer, there IS a very good reason why cancer rates overall are increasing. It’s because we’re living longer. There’s some very good biological reasons why if you live longer you’re much more likely to get cancer. But no one tell the Daily Mail, who knows what solution they might propose….!!!!?????

The Express and Mail do indeed have this habit of writing “NOW XXX IS BANNED/CAUSES CANCER”, the NOW suggesting a sense of breathless unstoppable stupidity by whoever is doing the banning, or helpless defeat in the face of the endless causes of cancer.